


Saint-Germain Community of Antiquity Lovers

by holodne_cerce



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Archaeology, Fantastic, Gen, M/M, Paris (City), Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Romance, Translation!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 08:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16991907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holodne_cerce/pseuds/holodne_cerce
Summary: Julian’s already decided that he’ll spend Christmas in a trench. “Trench” – so Marco called their excavation by the analogy with studied positions, and this word stuck tightly really soon. After discovering the man from the chest Kevin attempted to change the name to a “crypt”, but it didn’t stick, fortunately - there were also very superstitious people among archaeologists.





	Saint-Germain Community of Antiquity Lovers

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Сен-Жерменское общество любителей древности](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10754565) by [Yuonst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuonst/pseuds/Yuonst). 



> There might be some mistakes, English is not my first language  
> Please enjoy!

Julian came back to Wolfsburg in the middle of winter, around Christmas.  
It was quiet on Lake Constance in November, even the nature was freezing in anticipation of the winter influx of tourists. In the beginning of December alpine silence was split by voices, sounds, footsteps, rustles, and it became impossible to work. Even on the lake, where tourists had nothing to do in winter, every now and then some enthusiasts appeared, excited that they were not allowed to go to houses on stilts, to which, as they saw, people were scurrying.  
If it is allowed for those, in houses, then why it’s forbidden for them?  
As soon as the tourists appeared, it became absolutely impossible to work.  
Therefore, Julian came back in December.  
On the 20th he was called by the chief. Professor – “professor”, it was written down just like that in a phone notebook – from Poland, with an unpronounceable surname was favourite Julian’s chief, that’s why he picked up the phone. Also because it was unaccepted to call during the off-duty in their environment, the more interesting it was to find out the reason for the call.  
“Julian, you’re back?” professor inquired after quickly finishing the greetings.  
“I’m back.”  
“Any plans for the holidays?”  
It sounded intriguing. Even more intriguing than if professor asked what is he doing tonight.  
“None,” Julian replied carefully. In fact, it wasn’t accepted to answer like this in student’s environment, since it usually didn’t end up well. But Julian was no longer a student, so he could risk it.  
“And how’s you French?” if professor signed up for courses “How to surprise the interlocutor with every question”, he was definitely making progress.  
Julian scratched the tip of his nose, shifted the phone to the other ear and chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, wondering what so French does he have and what exactly is “how”.  
“Modern French, I mean,” professor specified.  
“To be honest, it’s really bad,” Julian confessed. University French course was short and passed by like a single moment.  
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” professor said, as if pondering.  
Julian realised it’s going to take a long time and turned on the kettle.  
“Eventually, everybody speaks excellent English there. And some also German, right?”  
“Of course,” Julian agreed, completely unaware of what was going on.  
“So are you agreed?” professor cheered up, and Julian shuddered: no, he shouldn’t pick up the phone out of hours, after all.  
“Sorry, I haven’t understood what was it all about,” Julian admitted pouring the coffee into his mug. Hot water overflowed, splashed on the countertop. Julian cursed and got himself a paper towel.  
Professor remained silent for a while. Apparently, convincing Julian to agree, he forgot completely to tell, what he needed to agree to.  
“Alma Mater needs you, Julian Draxler,” he said solemnly.  
“Cool,” Julian responded without much enthusiasm. “What happened actually?”  
“Our colleagues from the Paris University, with whom we cooperate, discovered the Gallic layer during the repair of the road. They invite you to have a hand in the discovery.”  
“The Gallic layer, aha. And what does that have to do with me?”  
“Well,” professor’s voice changed a bit, as if he hasn’t decided yet how to act better here – to press down or to try moving to pity. “But all of the faculty employees already have plans for Christmas. Somebody’s already left, just like me, for instance…”  
Julian sighed and took a dreary look at his austere room. He stepped up to the corkboard on the wall, picked the button holding the cutaway picture of piled house, with his finger. He has pondered and, still in doubts, asked:  
“Paris? Is it warm over there?”  
“Nothing to please you with, the weather’s something like ours. So are you agreed? It isn’t for long, just for around two weeks…”  
“Alright,” Julian consented. “I’m coming.”  
At the very least, his mother was crazy about Paris. A Christmas present from Paris itself, even received with some delay, could make her very happy. And an extra line in his resume, ascribing to Julian the participation in the discovering of a previously unknown settlement, could also please him. 

“Hooray! I’m sending you tickets by e-mail, you’re leaving tomorrow, the contact will be sent via SMS. You’re rescuing the whole university!”

“Yeah, sure,” Julian agreed, hanging up the phone with a sigh. 

It was needed much less stuff for two weeks than for a four-month trip to the Alps, of course, so Julian started sorting. Things that could have been taken with; things that could have been left home; things that had to be washed and taken with. 

Trying to fold the T-shirt with the logo of the local football club in such way for it to not have to be ironed later, Julian was reflecting on the gloomiest topics: why, for example, it was impossible not to go to this France at all. Let them French dig out their layer themselves – however, he certainly had an answer for this question, and it consisted in a practically monopolistic research interest among Germanic universities to the Gallic topic. Standing in the laundry waiting for the end of wash cycle, Julian was flipping through the tickets. Train ticket – to Dortmund, and airplane ticket – to Paris. “Beauvais”. Julian’s never heard of such an airport.  
In the message from the professor there were the phone number, the name and the postscript “contact him, he’ll meet you”. And good luck wishing.  
“Oh, thank you,” Julian grumbled to himself and began typing in English, picking up the right words.  
The reply came in ten minutes, catching Julian shoulders-deep in the washing machine. After grabbing an armful of still humid clothes, he pulled his phone out of the jeans pocket and read an SMS in literate German: “Won’t go to Beauvais, transfer is more expensive than a ticket. We’re waiting for you to seven in the Centre. Here’s the location.” The geolocation came a few minutes later.  
He was so tempted to call professor and to complain that this Kevin refused to meet him. Because, you see, transfer is more expensive than a ticket. Look at them. Frenchmen! 

 

Getting from Beauvais to Paris was really terribly difficult and expensive. There were lots of options: long and expensive. After estimating that he’s got a plenty of time before the salary, all the more so in not the cheapest Paris, Julian made a knight’s move and still got to the city by two buses. It was already around nine o’clock, it’s gotten dark, but Kevin wasn’t showing signs of life to wonder why is the guest late. 

On the other hand, Julian’s figured out why he refused to go to Beauvais to meet him. He would  
refuse it too, probably. 

With the help of Google Maps, poorly English-speaking French policemen and such-and-such German mother Julian reached the Pantheon-Sorbonne only at ten. His phone was still silent and Julian decided that they weren’t waiting for him anymore. Now he’s going to kiss the closed door, to call the couchsurfing woman who agreed to shelter him for the first time and to go on a new journey.

The bright hulk of the Paris I University was standing out gloomily in the dark, highlighted by the yellowish lamps. The main entrance was closed, the security guard had cursed him in French, and Julian had no other choice than to go around. The university had a lot of buildings, but Kevin sent indeed this address. But the chance that they will still meet was small. 

“If I won’t find it, I’ll call”, - Julian decided and felt a little bit relieved. 

Not a single lantern was burning in the alley behind the university, only a cigarette was blinking on the stairs at the emergency entrance. Approaching closer in a hope to find out the location of the mysterious center, Julian tried to make out the smoker’s face in the dark. 

It turned out to be a short guy of uncertain age. Due to his height he could have been both a schoolboy or a university student, and also, most unlikely, a teacher. A guy turned in profile and Julian noted with surprise that he’s only saw such clear lines on the Roman coins. 

“Excuse me,” Julian began in English.  
The guy flinched and threw the cigarette butt under his leg hurriedly. But after seeing Julian he kicked the cigarette with his shoe irritably and asked in displeasure:  
“What?”  
“I’m searching for the Centre… hmm… researching…”  
“Research,” prompted the guy and almost straight off started smiling. “Saint-Germain?”  
“Yes, yes,” Julian responded with relief and started to climb the stairs.  
“It’s over here!” he spoke English with an accent, and Julian could bet it wasn’t the French one.  
The guy snooped through his pockets, shoved a chewing gum behind his cheek, sighed deeply and said in one breath:  
“Saint-Germain Research Centre of the Department of Art History and Archeology of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne University! Is it you, the reason we’re late for the last train, right?”  
“I guess so,” Julian admitted embarrassedly, but the guy didn’t seem to hold any grudge against him. With one hand he pulled the doorknob, with the other he was shaking Julian’s hand introducing himself at the same time (“Marco!”), inviting to come in (“C’mon, hurry!”) and hoping for a miracle (“And maybe we’ll still be on time!”). Julian’s brain almost immediately refused to perceive this amount of words.  
“Ah yeah,” Marco suddenly said seriously, stopping and not letting him inside. “Don’t tell anybody I smoked, okay?”  
Julian shrugged. He had nothing to do with other people's bad habits.  
The hall, which was intended for the guest meeting at the usual time, was given to debauchery and booze at night. That is nothing special: the standard situation for any research organization.  
Marco left him at the entrance and rushed to the sofas, where two others settled down. One of them was reclined, having his legs arranged on the low table filled with bottles and snacks. The second one was laying on the sofa, his legs resting on the armrest and hanging down.  
Julian remained standing in the hallway, gathering the strength to come inside and immerse himself into the atmosphere of French disorder. And, probably, he should haul this Kevin – which one of them? – over the coals for not even asking why is he three hours late.  
That’s how useful acquaintances seem to be made?  
Marco plopped down in the chair, put a plate with the leftovers of thinly sliced meat on his lap. He looked at Julian and waved with a hand at him. There was no choice – he had to come up.  
Marco’s already lost interest in him, engrossed by looking for something hidden behind the armchair, the others just paid no attention to him. Julian put his backpack on the floor, carefully sat down on the very edge of the sofa, on which one of the researchers of French antiquity was lying, and coughed.  
“And which one of you is Kevin?” and for some reason he looked at the one who placed his legs on the table. That guy smiled and pointed to himself with his finger:  
“Grzegorz.”  
Julian sighed, mentally greeting one more incomprehensible name in his notebook.  
The guy lying on the sofa next to him threw his head back and stretched his arm:  
“Kevin is me. Hi, Julian. Welcome to our wonderful community.”  
He was talking in German, spoiled by long living either in France or in neighbouring German regions, and only his name was uttered entirely horrifying: it came out something like: “Zhulien”. Julian even shuddered, but still shook the outstretched hand.  
“Here you go,” Marco shoved an open beer bottle into his hands. “We know that you only eat beer.”  
Kevin made a weird sound, and Grzegorz guffawed openly.  
“Lord, where did I get in,” Julian thought. And also: “What do I get this all for?”  
“So what?” Julian specified. “What are we doing? What have you excavated there?”  
Three pairs of eyes turned to him with a silent question – what are you, a moron? Who even asks things like this in such a glorious company (minus Julian, plus three bottles of wine and a box of beer?)  
Marco was the first to have pity. He scratched his significant nose and confessed:  
“I’ve arrived recently. Kevin and Grzegorz know better, this is their specialization.”  
“Specialization?” Julian repeated.  
“Actually, I’m working on the Nivelles butchery and usually dig around Chemin de Dame area,” Marco said proudly and froze, waiting for the questions.  
“What’s this?” Julian asks docilely. Kevin and Grzegorz have took up the glasses and snacks again, which was highly distracting.  
Marco’s already big light eyes rounded even more.  
“Don’t you know?! This is World War I!”  
Julian shrugged. Him, a man specializing in alpine pile settlements, did not care, whether it was Napoleon, Mussolini, war of roses or World War I. And especially he couldn’t care less about the single battles.  
There was a desire to ask – do the French generally study their own history? But he did not, because the answer was already clear: The French believed that they knew their history better than anyone else, and therefore they generously allowed others to work on it. And even to make discoveries – but only, it must be assumed, under the auspices of the Directorate General for the Cultural Heritage of France, sure thing.  
Julian turned to his sofa neighbours.  
“And what about you?”  
“What about us?” Kevin’s even stopped chewing, interested in the statement of a question. (Grzegorz, on the other hand, didn’t even interrupt the process of pouring himself more wine).  
“How are you doing with Nivelles?”  
Out of the corner of his eye Julian could see Marco sulk. Kevin turned to him:  
“See, I told you nobody knows your Nivelles. Why, Marco? Narbonne Gaul,” Kevin pointed on himself, “that’s why.”  
“And one more Gaul, the name of which won’t say you anything whatever,” Grzegorz echoed after taking a drink.  
Julian frowned.  
“Okay, don’t get furious,” Kevin waved his hand and took the untouched bottle of beer from him. “In a town twenty kilometers away from Paris the road sagged. They rushed to repair it, lifted the asphalt, and there was the historical layer of God knows how many centuries old. They were going to bury it quickly, so no one would notice, but it did not work. Well, and then, as usual: they gathered all those who were on hand, sent them to the archives, figured out what period could it be. So our task is to pull out all the valuable things that we can find, give an opinion on what age or at least an era it is, prepare a report, get a medal and go mind our business.”  
Julian mentally estimated the distance: twenty kilometers is a little less than half an hour by train. What can be better that an excavation nearby the house? No tents, no sleeping bags, no boilers. Isn’t it happiness?  
“Well, since we’re late for the train anyway, we’ll have to stay in the hostel,” Kevin summarized, sticking to the beer. “Are you with us?”  
“Why? I have a place to stay. You don’t live in Paris?”  
Kevin chuckled.  
“We do live in Paris,” he replied. “But for now we’ve filled the only hotel in that town, to not get up at five in the morning every day.”  
Julian rolled his eyes. “Frenchmen, my God”, he thought. It’s clear why no one likes them: twenty minutes by train is far for them! Getting up at five is bad for them! My God, researchers!  
And even the fact that none of those present here was an ethnic Frenchman didn’t reassure the righteous fervor of Julian.  
“So, we’re meeting tomorrow at five in the morning and going there together?”  
“At five thirty!” Marco exclaimed.  
“At five!” Grzegorz argued. “You’ll still be late!”  
“I won’t!”  
“At five,” the Pole raised the voice.  
“And you can come by five thirty,” Kevin said in a whisper. Julian nodded knowingly. In his camp in Constanta there also were Southerners who couldn’t use the clock.  
While Grzegorz and Marco were bickering with the raised voices using all four languages at once, Julian took the straps of his backpack:  
“Ok, then I’m leaving, otherwise it’ll be time to go back until I’ll find my housing.”  
Everybody became silent instantly. Marco froze like a deer in the flashlights, Grzegorz reached for the bottle without looking. Kevin threw up his hands:  
“Where are you going? Without drinking?”  
“O-oh no,” Julian got up to his feet and slung a backpack over his shoulder. “Some other time.”  
“Then we’ll walk you to the metro!” Marco darted around the room in search of outerwear. He grabbed a jacket, put it on, drowned in it up to his ears, took it off, tossed it on Grzegorz. He caught his jacket, threw it over his shoulders.  
“Let’s go,” he agreed.  
Kevin took the hangers off the hanger, took his coat off of them and sedately put it on. He was obviously in no hurry.  
Julian was shifting his feet at the exit while Marco was running around collecting some papers all over the hall, dropping empty bottles into a bag and the food - into his mouth. The suasions that they’ll be back here did not work.  
Finally, they went out into the fresh air. There was a lantern burning in the alley, just right when it was unneeded anymore. Julian went forward as first, Marco overtook him and clang to his hand. Kevin and Grzegorz were following them leisurely.  
“I’ve been in the archive,” Marco announced. “You know, on this our occasion.”  
Julian nodded showing that he’s listening, trying to fix the twisted straps of the backpack. They were slipping down steadily, and Marco hanging on his shoulder wasn’t helping the situation.  
“Have estimated roughly, what kind of settlement could it be. ‘Cause, you know,” Marco lowered his voice, looked over his shoulder and reported in a whisper: “your colleagues have no habit of going to the archive. Okay, Google, what kind of shit did we just excavate? – and stuff like that. Terrible, right?”  
“Right,” Julian hemmed and looked over the shoulder too. He also didn’t like the archives, to be honest.  
Kevin winked at him without interrupting the conversation with Grzegorz, and Julian turned away instantly.  
“Well, generally, there’s a legend in that region. A cool legend about a merchant father! Should I tell you?”  
“If you’ll finish before the metro – then go ahead.”  
“I’ll make it!” Marco rejoiced and hurried: “Everything’s simple! A merchant was robbing the people. He had a daughter, who was worrying about those people – well, like it always happens, right? When a daughter tried to stand up for the people and express her indignation, he kicked her out on the streets, like, then go ahead and live with your people, you such a romp…”  
At the same time, Marco also managed to gesticulate with his free hand.  
“Then a girl quickly organized the popular outbreak, so they took this scoundrel down, crammed him into a chest where he kept his money, and buried him in it. Cool, isn’t it?”  
“Buried just like this?” Julian asked. He was nowhere near impressed by this legend.  
“Well, not exactly buried. Just dug it right where the road was planned to be built. And they scorched the earth around, whether so that he could get smoked better, or so that nothing grew around it. Villagers, what can you expect from ‘em! Nobody remembers this legend, obviously, but the people are flurried. They say, the roads never break down for no reason. We’re not in Eastern Europe, right?”  
“Does Grzegorz know about it?” Julian thought and nodded.  
“So are we going to search for this merchant father? Or the descendants of those who buried him?”  
“And why not?” Marco started smiling and then yelled: “I made it!”  
They arrived to the metro. If Julian hadn’t been pointed with a finger at it, he probably wouldn’t have guessed in life.  
“Good job!” Julian said just as joyfully, anticipating the sweet sleeping right up to four thirty in the morning.  
Kevin and Grzegorz came closer too, but Julian hasn’t noticed it, because Marco began to kiss his cheeks. Falling out of his unexpectedly tight embrace, Julian almost jumped away from Kevin reaching out to him, and rushed down the stairs with the quick steps after mattering that he has to go. 

He was as sleepy as if it was after the student’s nightly drinking, not after ceremonial reclining in bed. Julian was dozing, head down on the backpack on his lap. A part of his stuff was left in Emma’s apartment, but something like food and a change of clothes he took with him. It was assumed that he has to work the whole day in unknown conditions, still.  
Kevin landed on the bench next to him, slung his arm on the back behind Julian and greeted him in a bright voice.  
Julian glanced at him in a great doubt, obviously puzzled that anyone could find such an early morning good. Especially after yesterday’s libations. Kevin looked outrageously vigorous.  
Grzegorz standing at some distance waiting for a train also didn’t look really tired. What’s this – experience? Years of trainings?  
“Waiting,” he said for no apparent reason, taking a look on the seated.  
On the other Julian’s side Marco fell down. He had no luggage at all, even his jacket was unzipped despite the nasty morning wind – as if he just ran out of the threshold to smoke by stealth.  
However, it was unlikely that there still were people in Marco’s environment that didn’t know he smokes. At that moment he was amusing himself by playing with his lighter: he clicked it, held his hand over the light trying to squeeze it into a fist.  
Julian frowned in bewilderment.  
“It’s normal,” Kevin said. “He likes fire.”  
“Pyromaniac or what?” Julian asked affectionately.  
Marco smiled and nodded.  
The white-blue-red arrived to the platform, disturbing the sleepy expectation. Julian opened his eyes, slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed to the sliding doors, mumbling under his breath that he should have bought himself a coffee in one of the twenty-four-hour coffee shops in the district.  
“You’ll buy it on the spot,” Kevin said and sat next to him absolutely impudently, driving Julian to the window seat. Marco and Grzegorz arranged on the opposite. The Pole took the book, and his indefatigable colleague shoved the earphones into his ears and fell out of life for a while.  
Julian was kind of afraid that Kevin now will start communicating with him, but he took the tablet and the earphones out of his backpack and began watching a film. At first Julian was going to doze, but after realizing that he can’t fall asleep he looked over Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin silently headed him one earphone.  
“What are you watching?”  
“Finishing “Isle of the Damned”. Have you seen it?”  
“Aha. But will watch again,” Julian stuck an earphone into his ear, placed his cheek on the fist and looked at the screen, just as Kevin did.  
DiCaprio’s hero asked on the screen: what’s better, to live a monster or to die a nice human? Kevin said quietly observing the sea that was slowly rolling on the stones:  
“It’s so obvious, right?”  
“Of course,” Julian agreed. “The second.”  
Kevin was staring at him frowning, but he didn’t say anything. Apparently, he thought somehow differently, but Julian did not begin pondering it. Especially since the train was already slowing down and Marco has already rushed off to the exit.  
“Watching your stupid films again?” Grzegorz asked.  
“Reading “The Witcher” again?” Kevin retorted.  
“It’s not “The Witcher”,” Grzegorz replied a little offended and then followed Marco.  
Julian hemmed, made his way past Kevin to the gangway and walked to the luggage rack to get his backpack. The others didn’t carry anything with them – sure thing, because you can buy wine in absolutely any French town. 

In comparison to what Julian was used to work with, and everything else too, probably, a plot of land that they got from the clock watchers was microscopic. Of course it got widened a little bit for a few persons to fit in it, they also constructed supports and a ladder. The road was partly blocked, but it was impossible to expel the curious inhabitants, so that all the archaeological sacred actions took place under the watchful gazes from the windows.  
Yes, Julian wasn’t used to work like this at all. He changed to the jeans and a sweatshirt with the logo of alma mater, that have survived more than one shift in the Alps, took a folding shovel, a set of trowels, passed it all to Kevin that has already gone down, and climbed down himself to where another road was found. Sneakers got stuck in the sand, some of the already digging French added more to it. Julian shifted his feet angrily, pulled his socks higher and confessed:  
“Last time I was digging in the dirt in the third year.”  
“That’s not the dirt,” Kevin said surprisingly peacefully, apparently assigned to him for the time being. “This is a cultural layer. Das Stratum, if it would be clearer.”  
“I know what cultural layer is,” Julian muttered and went to the slice from which everything possible was sticking out: clods of earth, roots, worms, and everything that could be taken for dirt, and what could turn out to be not dirt at all. Julian took the trowel, hitched a shovel to his belt and started to poke around in the ground.  
“You better start here,” Kevin helped. “It won’t collapse.”  
Julian moved to another place obediently and got it started, over and over again returning mentally to his dear swamps and houses standing on the stilts.  
There were the voices coming from everywhere – in all languages that Julian could distinguish and in few more, which he didn’t know. Inside the excavation itself there were only five people, and four more were scurrying on the surface – and that’s despite the fact that Marco running around on top of them and shouting in three languages could safely have been considered as six.  
Julian rubbed the forehead with his wrist for not to smear it with dirt. He might take the gloves, but Kevin said it’s pointless until they’ll find something truly worthy. Julian didn’t argue, totally understanding what the other archeologists are thinking about him – about a boy who isn’t used to dig in “dirt”.  
Then what would they say to the experts wearing out the seats of their trousers in the archives? To those, without whom a lot of archeological discoveries could actually have not happened at all?  
He wanted to go back to his dear period so bad – the only thing comforting him was the fact that it was a temporary action.  
And then the wall drove suddenly, collapsed, jetted with clods of clay and dirt on him. He jumped away himself firstly, dropping all the instruments, and then somebody pulled his hand strongly and Julian fell down on someone. And at the same time it was very loud around: someone's cry, and a crunch, and a roar, as from a collapsed house.  
No, it was just one of the walls collapsing, not strengthened enough with the supports. Julian got up to his feet, shook off his clothes and his hands, very dirty and scratched, touched his face, defined by the unpleasant sensations that a bruise will surely appear somewhere around the cheekbone – and breathed out in surprise:  
“Marco?” and once again, already a little louder, calling up to pay attention to it. “Marco!”  
Marco seemed to end it up in a bad way. In other words, he was pretty much alive despite the extreme journey down with the ground and stones. He only landed unsuccessfully, apparently, judging by his eyes crazed with horror and pain and a strangely twisted arm.  
During the excavations many things happened. Including the fractures, but both Marco and Julian got pretty scared anyway. Why did Julian got so scared, especially since there were also more experienced people present at the excavation, who coped well with the first aid to the victim, was not clear. As far as he remembered someone only had been trying to drown himself in the lake, and even then this were tourists.  
While Marco who was whimpering desperately and only breaking for crying out in pain, was getting taken out of the widened split, Julian was sitting in a distant corner, waiting till everything calms down and it gets possible to lift up the fallen ladder and to come up on the surface. The rest, who were smarter and more used to that either managed to come up while the wall was collapsing or were already on the surface, as far as it was dinner time. Kevin lied down on the edge, hanged down the hand and touched Julian’s shoulder. He shuddered and turned around:  
“Ha?”  
“Are you alive?”  
“Sure,” Julian replied, pushing a large clod of ground away with the dirtied sneaker. “How’s Marco?”  
“He’s okay,” Kevin responded. “A fracture clearly is an unpleasant thing, but people live with even more terrible things. Hand me a ladder? I’ll go down.”  
“Aha,” Julian answered a little inhibited and shook his head trying to regain consciousness. He reached after the ladder, dug it out and placed it up to the wall. In a few moments Kevin sat down on the ground next to him and handed him a bottle of water.  
“You okay?” he repeated his question in a different configuration.  
“Yep, I’m okay,” Julian responded, pouring half of the bottle into himself at once. “Does it happen frequently by you?”  
“Fractures or collapses?” Kevin knelt, starting to scatter the ground. “Rarely, but right on target. Now it’s both. That’s alright, but now we gotta clean this shit up for a couple of days.”  
In support of his words he dropped a large layer of earth under Julian’s feet.  
“Help me,” Kevin asked in a suddenly changed voice. Both his lightheadedness and slight mannerism disappeared.  
Julian got closer, raked up some lumpy soil to himself. And all this by hands, because the instruments were buried somewhere by these clods. And not only clods.  
Above them the people were buzzing, evenly, with no yelling, which only meant one thing: Marco was already taken to the hospital. In any case, Julian’s decided so, until he heard his voice over his head:  
“I wanted to say goodbye… what’s there, what’s there?”  
Julian was staring at Marco in surprise, that’s why he didn’t notice how Kevin got to the thing he saw under the rubble. He scattered the ground to the sides and prodded Julian in his leg, calling for attention.  
“What’s that?”  
“What does it look like?”  
“A chest.”  
Marco fidgeted above them, and the ground poured down again. For a person with a fracture he was feeling way too good and moved a lot.  
“Maybe you’ll go already?” Julian couldn’t hold himself back, losing interest in the finding for the moment.  
“You wish!” Marco replied. “I got hurt because of it! Be happy I’m not going down. Trapp, show me what’s there – and I’ll go. Give you an honest Italian word.”  
Julian heard Kevin grumbling under his breath something like “when did I believe you the last time”.  
Kevin stretched his hand back, to Julian:  
“You had a shovel there.”  
“You’re not going to…” Julian made sure in horror, nevertheless detaching the shovel of his belt and placing it into the stretched hand.  
“I am.”  
Kevin tried it on and with one clear blow of the shovel knocked down a rusty padlock, clogged with dirt.  
“You’re a vandal,” Julian exhaled, dumbfounded. Either from the shock of the imminent discovery, or from the fact that Marco, despite the fracture, was still hanging over the excavation, or something else - but his voice almost disappeared.  
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “No gloves? Well, screw it.”  
He stuck the shovel into the narrow gap in the chest, moving it a little and began to slowly press the lid up.  
“C’mon-c’mon-c’mon,” Marco hurried. “The car’s already waiting for me, and you still can’t open it!”  
Julian leaned forward too. Judging by the fact that the people have scattered away from the scene of the incident – some to eat up, some to catch the car to the hospital, the discovery will belong only to them. If there is anything in this chest at all.  
At some point the loop in the lid broke and it laid back very easily. Kevin shrank back from the chest, from which a pillar of black dust had burst. It stank disgustingly.  
Julian felt sick. Kevin leaned lower barely breathing.  
“Wo-o-o-o-ow,” Marco’s already shifted to the other side and now was sitting with his legs dangling over one of the supports. He held the injured arm on his lap.  
“What’s in there?” Julian asked. He didn’t want to come closer.  
“Some rags,” Kevin carefully moved a pile of smelly rags with the shovel. “Some rottenness. Listen, liste-e-en,” he suddenly drawled.  
Marco almost fell down once more. Julian crumbled closer covering his nose with the hand.  
“I see the bones over here! That’s crazy!”  
“That’s crazy,” Julian and Marco agreed with him.  
“I’ll kill you if you won’t get me the results of the radiocarbon analyses, yeah?” Marco drawled, getting up to his feet awkwardly. Probably, has decide to keep his Italian word given. “Or I’ll come myself!”  
“You’ll come, you’ll come,” Kevin agreed, looking back at Julian. “We’re lifting it?”  
“Maybe we should call someone else?”  
Julian felt much better. The first shock has passed, and the main thing was that Marco’s falling was followed by such an exciting discovery. In the first day!  
“Will do it by ourselves,” Kevin slammed the lid close and winked at Julian. “Were doing it excellent so far!”

Julian’s already decided that he’ll spend Christmas in a trench. “Trench” – so Marco called their excavation by the analogy with studied positions, and this word stuck tightly really soon. After discovering the man from the chest Kevin attempted to change the name to a “crypt”, but it didn’t stick, fortunately - there were also very superstitious people among archaeologists.  
Emma made it clear to him that she’s going to spend Christmas joyfully and profitably, and if he has such a possibility, then also without him. Julian did not have such a possibility, but he wasn’t losing heart. Or rather at first he was, but then he stopped, getting to the excavation and plunging into it. He was sure that some of the archeologists will certainly stay in the city, therefore he wouldn’t have to work alone.  
Around five, when it’s begun getting dark, Kevin landed down in the excavation. He was busy running somewhere in the morning, then he disappeared, now he was back again.  
“You’ve lost your mind?” he started without preamble.  
“What do you mean?” Julian scratched his forehead with a trowel. After discovering the chest, they haven’t found anything interesting. Yes, the road that got covered later to lay a new one on top of it, but nothing more. A lot of cities could be proud of having something like this, and the other question is how will the mayor decide to dispose of this legacy. Julian’s heard somewhere that one of the cities came to a decision to lay glass upon a piece of road for the previous one to be visible. He didn’t know how realisable was this idea.  
“I’ve called you for five times, I’m searching for you.”  
“Why?” Julian almost wasn’t surprised. Or rather, he was, but kind of really tiredly. He was waiting until the last moment that archeologists will invite him to their warm company, but it didn’t happen. And he has put up with that. That’s why he wasn’t feeling really…pleased now.  
“We’re going to Saint-Germain,” Kevin took him tightly by the elbow, showing the seriousness of his intentions. “We’re having a holiday party there.”  
“I don’t really want to,” Julian tried to break free, completely understanding how stupid it sounds.  
Kevin understood it too.  
“Come on, come on, should I talk you into it or what?”  
Julian nodded.  
“Ok. I’m dirty all over.”  
“That’s nothing,” Kevin calmed him down, his jacket was already smeared, too. “It suits you well.”  
He pulled out the pullover’s sleeve that was visible from the jacket, pulled it up on his hand and rubbed Julian’s forehead. Julian shook his head.  
“Okay, let’s go.”  
Julian folded the trowels, shook off his hands and climbed up as first. In fifteen minutes they were already standing on the empty platform. There was no snow, it was only drizzling down from the gloomy sky. Julian shoved his hands into the pockets and sulked.  
“Aren’t you cold?” Kevin specified for no reason, putting the long scarf on top of his jacket. Its edge with fringe was swaying freely in the wind, hypnotizing Julian. He nodded. Then shook his head, changing his mind.  
“It’s okay.”  
Slowly, a nearly empty train pulled into the station, apparently, really the last one. Few could have imagined going to the city or from the city just before Christmas. A lightheaded melody was flowing through the dynamics. Julian, who was already cold, was warming himself at the window, with his hands in the pockets and sticking the earphones in. Kevin tried to address him a few times, but he could not hear him through the Megaherz, and he wasn’t even trying anyway, staring at the companion through his eyelashes from time to time. 

Admit that this is a madness,  
That you’re searching for something,  
That you love your life,  
Even though you’re cursing it.

North Station was with overfilled with tourists even around Christmas. Everybody was running somewhere, arguing about something, dragging heavy suitcases, the Chinese were clicking the cameras non-stop. Kevin was easily maneuvering between people, Julian was following him.  
In addition to the archaeologists and their closest confreres, the “book” historians, the Saint-Germain Research Center was also attended by representatives from other faculties. Kevin has dragged Julian through the hall, introducing him to these and those, but it didn’t seem possible to remember all of the names at once.  
Marco emerged from the holiday people’s mess, radiating with happiness. He held his hand in a leash, and the gypsum was spangled with the inscriptions and doodles – from the adequate ones to not really decent. Marco kissed Julian’s cheeks, and after him also Kevin, managed to grab them both with his heathy hand and to drag them to the tables. No even a minute has passed as they got bottles of beer in their hands.  
Marco ran away to amuse the guests again, Kevin disappeared somewhere too, so Julian set out on a search of someone familiar after filling his plate with snacks and canapé. Grzegorz was found on his favourite sofa in the hall surrounded by the Slavic fraternity of the Paris University.  
“Can I?” Julian asked, and was immediately gifted with many interested gazes.  
“Sure,” Grzegorz patted the sofa next to him, and after seeing how enthusiastically Julian eats, returned to the conversation in his funny language.  
After a while Marco found them, as if he was created for bringing a new bottle of beer after the previous one is done. And if Grzegorz was dealing good with delivery of alcohol to himself, Julian got sad really quickly as soon as the plate and the bottle emptied.  
“I see you’re bored!” Marco kicked a girl either from Slovakia or from Slovenia out of the sofa edge and plopped next to Julian taking away his empty plate. Instead he handed him two wineglasses, a corkscrew and a bottle.  
“Sauvignon Blanc harvest one thousand nine hundred and fifth year?” Julian asked at random, smiling and twirling a corkscrew in his hands.  
“Yeah, sure,” Marco replied in the same spirit. “Chilean wine from the supermarket for five euros.”  
“Not bad either,” Julian took the bottle away from Marco and started opening it.  
“What’s there?” Grzegorz looked over his shoulder, but lost interest after seeing the label.  
“What’s wrong, you don’t drink Chilean wine for five euros?” Julian asked, squeezing the bottle between his knees.  
“Chilean wine isn’t my case. Better some vodka.”  
Julian snorted, uncorking the bottle at the same time.  
“Good job!” Marco rejoiced. “Fill me up.”  
Julian held the bottle, pouring wine into the glasses, when he suddenly felt the warmth approaching to his ear. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement and sparkle, and jerked back, almost making Grzegorz who was sitting behind him spill his wine. But he was even more surprised with Marco’s reaction: after seeing an approaching candelabrum with five burning candles, like Julian did, he yelled deafeningly and, absolutely ignoring the gypsum, flew over the sofa elbow.  
Grzegorz’s friends rushed to lift him, Grzegorz himself wasn’t hurrying to get up. He even looked a bit surprised. Julian stared at him firstly, then at Kevin holding a candelabrum.  
“What the hell is that?”  
But Kevin looked not less surprised. Passing the candelabrum to Julian, who froze with it like a stone statue, he leaned toward Marco, symbolically brushing him off from some dust from the floor.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“Ah,” Marco said, “nothing. Take it away, it’s not funny anymore.”  
After that, he sped away grabbing a bottle of Chilean wine.  
Kevin took the candelabrum from Julian, sat down beside him and began to put out the candles, licking his fingers.  
“What is this?” Julian asked once more.  
“This is a Victorian candelabrum,” Kevin answered. “Marco loves it a lot. He carries it around all night long on Christmas and Hanukkah and changes the candles himself. Well, he must’ve got sick of it. Have something to drink?”  
Julian offered him his glass, but an unknown bottle, handed by Grzegorz, turned out to be more enticing. Kevin put the candelabrum on the table between empty cups and a plate of bread crumbs, and the incident was forgotten soon.  
Because later there was Polish booze, beer, wine and cocktails that were mixed by sometimes showing up Marco. Agreeing to come here was the best of Julian’s worst ideas. 

He woke up in the hostel. Judging by the posters on the walls – sectioned view of the first tanks, humanization of Entente, “and what have you done for the victory?” and so on, it was either Marco’s room or someone’s of his colleagues. Besides Julian being in a bad condition there were none in the room. But on the nightstand was found left by someone saving bottle of water.  
Putting an emptied bottle down on the floor, Julian got out of bed carefully and headed to the bathroom by touch without opening his eyes, and tripping over the things scattered around the room. Well, he sincerely hoped that this is indeed a bathroom and not the door to the corridor. His hopes were almost fulfilled – there were two rooms in the block, a bathroom and a toilet. Fortunately, none of the neighbours has shown any signs of life yet.  
Julian rubbed his face with wet palms, looked into the mirror, shook his head to himself and got into the shower. Ablution brought some relief, at least he didn’t want to lay down and die anymore. Finding his jacket and backpack dumped in the corner of the room, Julian dawned upon of looking at the watch. It was early past twelve, and he badly didn’t want to meet the owner of the room for some reason. So he got dressed, slung the backpack over his shoulder, pulled the hood on his still wet head and went out into the corridor, slamming the door tightly.  
Most likely, Emma had already finished celebrating Christmas, so that he could come to the apartment, change there and go to the excavation. Or take a walk through Paris like a normal tourist. Somehow, until this moment, Julian didn’t have such a desire, but now he did.  
Anyway, Paris metro was waiting for him.  
Of course, Julian had a key to the apartment. But he didn’t have to use it: a door to the apartment was not closed. Maybe someone, just like Julian, decided to go without goodbyes, and did not closed the door behind him – there was nothing weird about it as a part of the noisy celebrations.  
There was silent in the apartment. Julian hid the keys into his jacket pocket, hung it on the hanger, took off his shoes – all this in the utter silence, which was already weirder. Emma kept a dog named Charles – small and very squeaky, meeting every guest with an argute barking regardless of the time of the day.  
It was for the better, because Emma, and maybe her guests, were probably sleeping and Julian did not want to wake her up.  
And at the same time it was suspicious: did they eat the dog or what? Or maybe Emma’s walking her?  
Julian sneaked to the hall, which doors were leading to the rooms – to the one he was occupying, and to Emma’s bedroom. Emma, as well as her dog, were found there.  
Julian dropped his backpack.  
Emma was lying on the floor, face down, her dark curly hair surrounded her head. Her hair was lying in the dark blood beginning to harden.  
Unser Vater in dem Himmel, - Julian only managed to think before he felt sick of the thick smell of blood hitting his nose. Charles lying on his owner’s back raised his head and followed him with a wistful gaze to the very bathroom, where Julian threw up.  
When he came back to the hall, praying mentally for it all to turn out to be a hangover hallucination, Emma and Charles were still on their place.  
Julian leaned his shoulder to the doorjamb and slid down slowly. From below he saw his backpack touching with its edge the bloody puddle from under Emma’s head and pulled its strap hurriedly. Bloody drops stretched across the floor behind the backpack.  
Anyone among Emma’s guests could’ve done that – traces of the celebration were visible everywhere. Bottles, that Emma apparently started to put into the garbage bag, but didn’t have enough time for that; plastic disposable plates with a cheerful pattern; tinsel on the sofa; mistletoe garland hanging down from the chandelier.  
Anything could have happened under the influence of alcohol, but this in no way diverted suspicion from Julian. He grabbed his backpack, pressing its bloody corner with the palm for it to not drop down, and rushed into the room. He started darting around there and collecting things, making the bed, arranging the windows - in general, strenuously pretending that he had never been here.  
Panic was flooding Julian, almost flew out of his nose (it was hoped that it was just a runny nose that was activated from stress and dank weather). He forced himself to stop, to look around the room with a calm gaze. He did not work out a calm one, of course, but Julian was lucky he didn’t really put out his stuff, carrying it all inside the backpack. And something else – the last one.  
Julian entered Emma’s room, came closer to her computer. Fortunately, it was on. Without touching the mouse, using the censor screen, Julian opened couchsurfer’s site and deleted their whole conversation with Emma. So he felt a little better.  
He came back to the hall trying not to look at girl’s body, walked around it in a wide arc.  
Almost got tangled in a long-piled carpet, plus hit something. A gun flew out of the carpet to the floor.  
Julian got scared at first. Jerked away from it, like from a venomous snake, and then came closer. Despite the fact that he was a specialist in prehistoric settlements, it was easier to distinguish Luger from any other pistol than to list the rulers of France, who never got into scandals. Julian got nervous again - he reached out and put the Luger into his pocket.  
Leaving the apartment Julian left the door open. And hoping that the neighbours will be smart enough to wonder why did Emma not close the door, he rushed down, ignoring the elevator and jumping through the steps.  
Of course, he should’ve called the police. But it put him at a way too big threat.  
Instead he dialed another number.  
Kevin answered not instantly and in a such voice, that all of the Julian’s questions about the long waiting disappeared. Kevin was obviously sleeping and planned to do it for a long, long time.  
Julian was racing to the metro, knocking down the random passing-by.  
“Are you in the hostel?” he breathed out, showing even with his voice that something’s wrong.  
“No,” Kevin, apparently, understood something, because he put himself together and stopped sounding like a ghost of himself. “I came back to the hotel in the morning. What happened, Julian?”  
This terrifying “Zhulien” sounded again, and Julian shrugged.  
“Everything.”  
“What – everything?”  
“I’ll be at your place in forty minutes, meet me at the hotel, ok?”  
“Ok,” judging by the voice, Kevin was surprised as much as Julian was scared.  
Twenty minutes by train threatened to turn into eternity. It seemed to Julian that everybody’s staring at him – passengers, tourists, guardians on the station. It wasn’t calming. He pulled his hood deeper and pretended to be asleep.  
Kevin jumped out of the hotel in a shirt and jeans, apparently seeing him through the glass doors. Without asking anything he dragged Julian after himself. Led him to the small hall, passing by the reception, he smiled at a girl, hardly visible behind the counter:  
“I have a guest.”  
A girl smiled at him in response, looked at Julian, smiled even wider and looked away.  
Only in the elevator Julian decided to ask, what that was.  
“Nothing,” Kevin responded shrugging his shoulders. “I have a double with one bed.”  
Julian did not ask anything else, involved in his paranoia. Kevin stared at him with interest, apparently melting with curiosity.  
Julian was in no hurry to catch up with his news – he threw the backpack at the door, moved to the armchair, drowned in it and just sat there for some time, making up his mind. Kevin was staring at him, but finally he left to put the kettle on. In silence. Julian wasn’t really sure himself, that he’s ready to hear anything. He even thought that he shouldn’t have come to Kevin, that now he has to tell him something, explain something, swear that he hadn’t done it… And then he decided, that if he’ll suddenly disappear into thin air, it would only be worse. At least it was worthy to win the colleague’s support, just in case.  
Kevin returned with two mugs of coffee, gave one to Julian, sat down on the bed on the opposite. More time has passed in a wistful silence.  
Kevin broke down first:  
“I understand that you maybe don’t want to speak, but if I’ll die of curiosity, it will be your fault.”  
Julian shuddered and shrank. Well, at least Kevin has understood that something very serious happened. Maybe even about life and death.  
Julian put the mug away, reached into his pocket and put Luger onto his lap.  
Kevin was just gazing at the pistol for a while, not daring to speak. He only had two thoughts: too many options of what could’ve have happened; Julian came to kill him.  
“Probably, I started wrongly,” Julian said slowly and put Luger into his pocket again. He took his mug of coffee and took a gulp. He grimaced, but did not let go of the mug.  
And began to speak. About the morning in a strange room (Kevin interrupted and said that he actually assured everyone at midnight that he was about to leave for his home), about the trip home, about the death of Emma and the silent Charles, about Luger in a pile of carpet, about his thoughts on this issue - although there were not very many thoughts. Only rather an unclear fear that Kevin won’t believe him and will reach out for his phone. What to do with him then, to hit with a handle? This thought made Julian shiver.  
“Kevin, I swear that it wasn’t me,” Julian finished his story. He looked up at Kevin for the first time. Kevin was sitting very serious and very gloomy.  
“Yes, I believe you,” Kevin replied and sipped his cold coffee. “A murder is a really unpleasant thing, but if you’re not to blame, I guess you have nothing to fear. I’m even sure!”  
His attempt to cheer up could be crowned with success, if there wasn’t a slight problem sitting on Julian’s lap.  
“It isn’t just a simple murder, Kevin. It’s…” without finding the right word Julian threw Luger on the bed next to Kevin. Kevin took it cautiously, twirled it in his hands, read the inscription and darkened even more.  
“Marco should know who could have kept Luger, presented to Heinrich Ferdinand. Not the last figure in the house of the Habsburgs, after all.”  
“I can tell you it now,” Kevin replied in a harsh voice.  
Julian kept his ears open.  
“It belongs to Marco,” Kevin dropped Luger back on the bed. “And I don’t want to think how it could have happened.”  
He hugged his head, ran his fingers through the hair. He looked perplexed.  
Julian wasn’t feeling better because of it. He threw off his sneakers, climbed into the armchair with his legs, buried his face in the knees.  
“It’s a total mess,” it was all that he could say about this.  
“We need to talk to Marco,” Kevin started disassembling Luger for some reason. He managed to only pick away the magazine. He found there the last cartridge and stuck the magazine back.  
“No way,” Julian responded. “I want to live.”  
“It could not have been Marco!” Kevin lost temper but immediately calmed down, not fully assured in his words. “Then I’ll go alone.”  
He reached for the phone.  
Julian watched his movements without stopping. He should have said “okay, I'm going with you,” but he didn’t want to. That would be very stupid. If to go – then to go silently. For laughing loudly together with Marco at this nonsense later. Just imagine - Marco killed a man! This is ridiculous…  
“He doesn’t pick up,” Kevin put the phone on the bed and leaned back. “He’ll call back later, it means.”  
Julian nodded, even though Kevin wasn’t looking at him. He hid the head behind his crossed arms and froze like this despite the fact that all the muscles were in pain from an uncomfortable position.  
Marco called back forty minutes later. Kevin sat up abruptly, pressed the phone to his ear, and still Marco was heard almost better. He sounded as usual: loud and joyful. This voice could in no way belong to the murderer – but then everything was getting even more complicated.  
“What’s up?” Marco asked, managing to speak Italian with someone else at the same time.  
“Nothing,” Kevin tried to sound more cheerful and almost coped with it. “Let’s cross paths, where are you now?”  
“Oh, now I can’t, I’m busy,” Marco reported vigorously. “I will go to the excavation tomorrow, let's sit in the hotel restaurant. Bene?”  
“Bene,” Kevin answered, but Marco wasn’t listening to him anymore. He said goodbye joyfully and hung up.  
“And what do you think?” Kevin asked tensely.  
“Nothing,” Julian responded. “I’ll stay here, okay? Then I’ll buy a ticket and go home. And won’t care about the problems of Sheriff.”  
Kevin clasped with his tongue thoughtfully.  
“Sure. The bed is big, I’ll ask for second blanket at the reception.”  
“We'd better ask for a cot or a mattress,” Julian replied gloomily.  
“What for?” Kevin turned his head to him, so that Julian could see how beautifully and surprised he raises his eyebrows. “On the bed it is more convenient.”  
“Who cares what is more convenient to you. I won’t lie with you.”  
“Why?”  
“Because,” Julian snapped and pretended that he was very keen on drinking coffee from an already empty mug.  
Kevin shrugged and turned away, clearly offended. He moved his lips, mumbling something like "why did you come at all then," but Julian did not hear him.

Sleeping on the cot was uncomfortable. Reception girl that brought a cot to the double room, looked at them thoughtfully, smiled sadly and knowingly and left. Julian almost immediately wanted to tell her some nasty things, but he held himself back. He wanted to quarrel with Kevin, but he was in the shower and didn’t react to the knocking on the door.  
And when he went out – Julian’s already cooled down and decided that he just needs to go to bed earlier. That tomorrow will be better. Probably. If he’ll make it through this day, of course.  
Julian laid in the dark, stared at the ceiling with the long shadows on it that were created by Kevin’s laptop who was sitting on his bed, listened to the measured clack of the keyboard, the rustle of a finger on the touchpad and was thinking that he can’t be sure in anything at all. In the fact that Kevin wouldn’t decide to shoot him with that Luger – in the first place.  
But the idea of dying in his sleep seemed pretty attractive to him, especially since Kevin has not shown any aggression yet.  
With these soothing thoughts Julian fell asleep.  
The morning began with the dawn. Julian laid still a little longer, turning from side to side crunching with his numb back. Kevin was sleeping, wrapped in a warm blanket right up to his ears, and showed no signs of morning life. Julian stood up carefully, trying not to creak, and sneaked into the bathroom. Apparently, nevertheless, not quietly enough, because when he came back, Kevin was sitting on the bed, wrapped in the same blanket, and yawning.  
“Marco has called,” he said through a yawn.  
“Yea-a-ah?” Julian yawned back, clicking with the button on the kettle. “And what did he say?”  
“A coffee for me too,” Kevin said quickly. “He said he’s going to be here in an hour. It means, we can go down to the restaurant in two hours.”  
“Why in two?”  
“Because where is one hour, there must be two.”  
“And what if…”  
“Well, no.”  
Julian frowned and began to pour the coffee into the mugs.  
Exactly an hour later he began getting nervous. His palms became wet, his heart was pounding like crazy in his chest, every now and then reminding about itself somewhere up the throat.  
“Maybe we still go down?”  
Kevin gazed at him over the laptop cover.  
“Why?”  
“Well, what if he’s already came.”  
Kevin put his phone up, expressively unblocked it and didn’t find anything new there.  
“He hasn’t yet. When he calls, we’ll go.”  
“Okay,” Julian replied and buried his nose in the empty cup again. Couldn’t resist and asked:  
“Maybe you have a book?”  
Kevin rummaged around on the bedside table, picked up a tattered paperback book, studied it critically and answered:  
“No.”  
“And what’s this?”  
“Exupery in French. “Military pilot”.”  
Julian nodded.  
“Got it. Okay, there’s none.”  
Marco called exactly in one hour and forty-five minutes and in a cheerful voice demanded that they appear immediately, because he had already ordered a pizza, but it was huge, and he wasn’t able to gobble it up alone.  
Kevin took a look at Julian, as if drawing his attention to his rightness, but Julian did not react, slinging his backpack over the shoulder.  
“Why do you need it?” Kevin asked in surprise.  
“Don’t know,” Julian answered reluctantly and put it down on the floor. “Let’s go already.”  
They left Luger in the room.  
Marco was already waiting for them in the restaurant sitting with the huge pizza with a spicy-smelling pepperoni. It was obvious that it took him some great efforts to wait for his colleagues and not to eat pizza hungrily straight off.  
For a while, everyone was silent, champing enthusiastically and pouring over tomato juice flowing down their fingers. Even Marco was silent, eating his own half and distracting sometimes to wash down another slice. He only spoke when the meal (in his understanding, Julian was still trying to shove into himself the last slice, and Kevin was concentrating on rubbing the hands with a napkin) was over.  
“So-so-so?” he asked.  
Julian felt the shiver that he couldn’t hold back.  
“We’ll go to my room now, will show you something,” Kevin said absolutely calmly, and asked for the bill after catching the waitress running past them.  
Julian really didn’t want to go to the room with Kevin and Marco. Just because, well… he was afraid, sure thing. Not only of the fact that Marco really can turn out to be a murderer, but also because after Emma’s murder Julian should stay as far as possible from any kind of troubles. Desirably, at home.  
Interestingly, does Germany gives out criminals at the request of France? Well, you never know how it goes…  
Marco climbed on Kevin’s bed with his legs despite the winter dirt on his sneakers, intertwined his fingers on his lap and, swaying back and forth enthusiastically, stared at Kevin with his huge eyes.  
“So-so-so?” he repeated.  
Kevin exchanged glances with Julian, who took a place in the armchair, and landed on his armrest.  
“Pass it, please,” he asked quietly.  
Julian passed him Luger that was peacefully lying on the bedside table before.  
“We found it. Is it yours?”  
“O-oh, my precious!” Marco exclaimed. “Where did you find it?”  
Kevin was silent. Julian was clenching and unclenching his fingers and was also silent. They both were staring at Marco without looking away.  
A smile slipped away from Italian’s face.  
“C’mon, don’t you think…”  
Kevin nodded. Julian finally made a decision for himself that he will not interfere in this conversation.  
Marco lowered his head and said quietly:  
“It’s all your fault.”  
“Mine?” Kevin asked in surprise.  
“No,” Marco shook his head and looked up at Julian. “Yours.”  
“What you mean?” Julian asked in a hoarse voice, pressing himself into the armchair.  
Marco’s eyes were absolutely black. The pupil flooded the bright iris and filled the white, flinching.  
Kevin stretched his hand, pressing Julian against the armchair. Apparently, it was an unconscious gesture, Kevin either tried to protect or to hold back.  
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked carefully.  
But Marco was staring with his insane black eyes at Julian and was talking only to him:  
“You repeated so many times that you’re going home, I was sure I’ll find you there. But only this girl with a shrill cur turned up my arm, I had to solve this problem.”  
Even his voice changed.  
“Marco…” Kevin drawled in surprise. “What’s with your eyes? Marco!”  
Marco turned his head to him with a gesture from a horror film, it only lacked a click. Kevin swallowed hard and pulled his hand with Luger closer. The blackness of the eyes was consuming him.  
“It’s not Marco.”  
Julian grabbed Kevin’s arm and repeated after Marco (not Marco?) in a barely audible whisper:  
“It’s not Marco?”  
“If he said so, then no,” Kevin snapped.  
Not-Marco got up from bed easily without paying attention to his arm on the sling, and took several quick steps towards them.  
Kevin shot, more from fear than from hope to injure – a fountain of blood blew out of Marco’s shoulder, right above the sling. And he started to fall back fast.  
For a second – or, maybe, two, three – Julian was holding Kevin’s elbow, and Kevin was holding empty Luger in his outstretched hand.  
Marco laid on the floor, his eyes were normal – grey and frightened, with the pupils dilated in pain.  
“God, we’re fucked,” Kevin whispered and stood up, getting closer to Marco in a few steps and sitting down next to him. Julian also climbed out of the armchair and now was nervously looming behind his shoulder.  
Marco’s eyes got flooded with black for a few moments again:  
“A boy may not survive,” he said, moving his pale cracked lips. “Why do I need it?”  
Kevin and Julian recoiled. A pillar of black dust hit up.  
“God, it’s fucked up,” Julian repeated after Kevin almost word in word.  
Marco fainted. Kevin rushed to the phone.  
“Hello! We’ve got the excavations carried out here,” he said the address. “And out colleague… got injured once again. Would we have an ambulance?”  
There was too much nervousness in his voice to attribute it to the regular workplace injury.  
Julian slid down to the floor, hugged his knees and began mumbling something quietly.  
Kevin was running around the room, grabbing either a pillow, or a towel to press it against Marco’s shoulder. His thoughts were darting from one thing to another, mixing up with the swear epithets.  
“Black dust… local legends… verdammte Scheiße! God, I’m so sick of it all, I want to work in the archives… Just imagine, we woke up some kind of shit and it wants to kill us now… nique ta mere! I also want to kill when somebody wakes me up, but not that much…”

After Marco was taken by the ambulance, a cleaning lady came, who they had to pay to for her to agree to scrub the blood from the floor. All this time they were silently sitting in the corridor, answering the girl's questions at the reception desk, inventing the story that Marco’s already broken arm had manifested itself, and because of the unfortunate fall, the fracture became open. Marco was conscious, he didn’t hurry to write a statement to the police, so they didn’t interrogate them much.  
And a shot – maybe it wasn’t heard. And if it was, it was taken for a TV turned on at a high volume. Moreover, the old Luger had a soft blow-back, and the sound was not really loud. 

Returning to the room, Julian immediately laid down on the cot and covered himself with a rug with his head. Kevin brought him some mint tea, which turned out to be so chemical that his scent burned the eyes, and Julian refused. Then Kevin tried to put him off some ordinary tea, Julian vaguely snapped back, so he backed off, went to his bed, also crawled under the covers and buried his head in a book.  
They had nothing to talk about, because they absolutely did not understand what has happened. The obvious answer - an awakened evil ghost trying to kill them - didn’t fit in the head and in every way was rejected by the organism. The absence of the Fantastic in their utterly real world was very scaring. And something else – they didn’t understand – was it the end?  
Or is it just the beginning?  
At some point Julian moved from the cot to the bed, muttering “screw it all”, crawled under the blanket and cuddled up to Kevin. Kevin looked at him a little wary:  
“What’s the matter?”  
“I’m cold,” Julian grunted and in acknowledgement grabbed Kevin by the shoulder with his icy hands.  
Kevin yanked and tried to withdraw his arm. And froze instantly, feeling the icy fingers sneaking under his shirt, stroking his skin without getting warmer at the same time.  
Kevin closed laptop’s cover and removed it from his lap. Julian almost immediately pressed his lips to his neck, and Kevin was silently puzzled, digesting what was happening.  
“Come on,” Julian whispered with displeasure and demandingly bit the skin below his ear.  
“Okay,” Kevin agreed inopportunely, rolling over and getting on top of Julian.  
Julian was staring with an interest and even with a dare, smiling slightly with the corners of his lips.  
“Is it a way to relieve stress, and you’re going to regret it later?” Kevin supposed, bending over and kissing Julian below his throat. Julian’s Adam’s apple twitched as he swallowed hard. Kevin bit his skin in revenge and caressed it with the tongue instantly.  
Julian sighed convulsively, half-opened his eye and answered lazily:  
“Nah, I’m not going to regret…”  
Julian put his hands on his shoulders, ran his fingers down the back, grabbed the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up. Kevin smiled, throwing off the blanket, got out of his T-shirt and kissed Julian. 

Kevin never had nightmares and almost never had normal dreams. But this time he was dreaming about something all night long, he had to run somewhere, to jump, to fight someone. He was thrashing around, tumbling, threw off the blanked and has woken up few times because of Julian’s tangible butting. As a result, he took the blanket from him, wrapped in it up to his head, and Kevin was freezing the rest of the night.  
In the morning Julian disappeared somewhere from his arm, and Kevin got the blanket, wrapped himself in it and slept for several hours more calmly.  
After waking up he laid for a while with his eyes closed, listening to everyday and at the same time strange sounds: first, the water rustled outside the door, then the towel rustled, slipping off the hook, Julian stomped, his phone clicked. Usually, Kevin was annoyed when someone with whom he spent the night rummaged around the room in his absence (in view of sleep or anything else), but now, surprisingly, it did not bother him at all.  
Julian sniffled funny and suddenly sneezed.  
“Bless you,” Kevin said without opening his eyes and shifted to the side.  
“Thanks,” Julian laughed. “Not sleeping?”  
He stood up and walked over to the bed, sat down near the legs, slowly pulling the blanket to himself. Kevin didn’t want to part from the blanket, he grabbed the slipping edge of it and pulled it at himself. Julian reached out and fell on Kevin, hugging him on top of the blanket. He burrowed his nose somewhere into the neck and puffed warmly.  
“Ok, ok,” Kevin twitched with his leg. “I’m getting up.”  
“I don’t care now,” Julian replied.  
“No-no,” Kevin protested. “I’m really getting up, I need a bathroom.”  
Julian slid to the side reluctantly, letting go of Kevin from the blanket captivity. Kevin picked up his T-shirt from the floor and disappeared in the bathroom. He got out of there in fifteen minutes, refreshed and softened, and found Julian in the blanket cocoon.  
Kevin started getting dressed. Julian was watching him from the bed.  
“Where you’re going?”  
“To the excavation, want to see how the things are going there.”  
“I’m going too,” Julian got out the bed cheerfully, jumped into his sneakers and began to lace them.  
“Let’s go,” Kevin flung his jacket on and wrapped himself in a scarf. After thinking a little he took it off and threw it over Julian.  
“Why?”  
“It’s cold there,” Kevin said and dragged Julian after himself by the scarf’s edge.  
As Kevin had expected, there was no one at the excavation site except for the person on duty who lived in the tent. They approached the excavation, which expanded due to the fall of Marco, stood on the edge for a while.  
“Aren’t you going to work?” Julian asked suspiciously.  
“No,” Kevin responded and took a matchbox out of his pocket. He struck a match and held it in his hand.  
Julian hit his hand. A match flew out and went out.  
“Are you nuts?! They’re going to bite our heads off for that!”  
Kevin shook the matchbox thoughtfully.  
“Well, that’s nothing,” he said. “We’ll have to go to Argentina.”  
“Why to Argentina?” Julian took the box from him and put it in his pocket.  
“Well, where else would guilty Germans go?”  
“Ah, in this sense…” Julian grabbed him by the elbow. “Maybe we’ll go away from here? Will think that everything’s over.”  
“He was afraid of fire,” Kevin pointed at the excavation meaning Marco and his eerie black eyes.  
“He was,” Julian grimaced. “Let’s go. It only lacks to fall under the article for an arson.”  
“Okay, you’re right,” Kevin agreed and stepped back from the excavation’s edge. “We need to visit Marco in the hospital and to leave. He won’t declare to the police, and that your girl… I feel sorry for her, but I hope no one will find you. Right?”  
Julian moved his shoulders uncertainly, hiding his hands into the pockets.  
“We need to leave, yeah.”  
“Will we go to the hospital?” they were passing by the station, and Kevin nodded with the head to the train heading to Paris.  
“No,” Julian replied. “They won’t let us in anyway now. Let’s go back, it’s cold.”  
Kevin turned to him to say something like “I’ve warned you”, but Julian winked at him, and all of the words disappeared somewhere.  
“Alright, let’s go.” 

In the elevator Julian unbuttoned his jacket. Nothing special - just took the buttons out of the loops one by one with simple careful movements, but from every one of them Kevin's blood rushed to his head, his cheeks and ears were burning.  
“What?” Julian asked at the exit from the elevator, gently pinching him by the red cheek.  
Kevin shook his head and followed him through the hall.  
In the room’s hallway Julian stopped to take off his shoes, the scarf and the jacket. Kevin stood in the doorway for some time to not disturb, then after thinking a bit, still closed the door and hugged Julian from behind, pressed his cheek to Julian’s. And felt with his skin that Julian smiles.  
“Why you’re standing, undress,” Julian said sternly, still smiling.  
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed, taking off of Julian his jacket and putting it aside. Julian, in his turn, took off of him his jacket, waited for him to take off the shoes, and lured him to the bed.  
“Fall down,” Julian commanded.  
Kevin sat down on the bed, slid down, arranging himself on the pillows and watching Julian undress. He unzipped the sweat jacket, took it off, and with one gesture he freed himself from the T-shirt, showing all his ribs-elbows-moles-clavicles-even-and-clear-lines-all-over-the-body. He hesitated with his belt and raised his head.  
He met Kevin’s gaze. Kevin licked his dry lips, Julian narrowed his eyes and slowly undid the jeans button. But he didn’t take them off, went to the bed and in a moment he was sitting on Kevin.  
Kevin licked his lips one more time, stretched out his hands and slowly, without denying himself anything, moved his fingers up from the jeans belt, to the sides, counting the ribs, and down again.  
Julian smiled - somehow especially as only he could: wrinkles appeared from nose to lips, from eyes and under eyes, and his whole face changed with a smile. Kevin closed his eyes, concentrating on his own pulse and the touch of Julian: he stroked his collarbone with his fingertips, leaned over to touch the dimple between them with his tongue. He stepped back again to stroke his neck where it already connects with the shoulder.  
His hands were cold from the outside, and the goosebumps were running all over his body from every light touch. Julian bent down, burned Kevin’s ear with his warm breathing, grabbed his earlobe with his lips and pulled it gently. Kevin bit his lip, vaguely exhaling something.  
“Yes?” Julian laughed, tickling his wet ear. “I don’t think so.”  
Kevin didn’t even try to argue.  
Julian was stroking his neck, spiky chin, yesterday’s dark marks on his skin. All this – very slowly, carefully, studying and tickling. Kevin didn’t even want to open his eyes – he didn’t need to, actually.  
Until the strong fingers clenched on his throat.  
The first thing that Kevin thought, getting pullet out of a blissful non-existence was that he doesn’t like such games. But very quickly he realised that these weren’t games at all. That the fingers are putting pressure on his throat, blocking the access of air, nausea is coming, and the eyes are teary.  
Even through the blurry vision Kevin could see how black are Julian’s eyes.  
Kevin jerked his leg, grabbed Julian hands with his own, trying to tear them away from himself. He panicked, twitching, trying to breathe in a little, thrashed around, trying to throw him off. He gasped on air, closed his eyes and froze for a moment – but only for throwing Julian off of himself, straining.  
He was lucky of being a little stronger.  
Julian fell on the bedside table, knocked a book and a glass of water down, hit his head on the wall and fainted. The black eyes rolled over.  
Kevin rushed out of bed rubbing his eyes as he moved. Of course, no excitement was referred, while he was darting around the room, looking at Julian constantly and stuffing things into the backpack. He was doing all this without quitting muttering and scolding himself for what it’s worth. Something like “God, I’m such an idiot” and “How was it possible not to figure out”.  
Julian’s jacket and two bottles from the bar got to the backpack, and Kevin was in no need for anything else. He grabbed his jacket, slammed the door closed behind himself and ran to the elevator.  
A girl at the reception followed him with a surprised look, and the glass door barely had time to part letting him outside. Cold air was tormenting the lungs and the throat, and Kevin teared along to the excavation still scolding himself. Everything was so bad and so good at the same time, even the thoughts inside his head refused to fit one after another. It was just too much.  
Kevin scared a man of duty off of the tent, and he rejoicing at seeing him, went out to the store for cigarettes. Taking out of the backpack the bottles of absinth and sambuca, Kevin walked over to the excavation. He ripped the cork off the liquor and poured everything down. He was not sure that it would work, that it would help at all. He had never burned the ground, but he understood perfectly well that for this there must be at least something that could burn.  
The excavation caught on fire quickly, fire ran over the ground just as quickly and subsided. Kevin threw Julian’s jacket, from which he was taking out the matches, over his shoulder, dropped the bottles down and went towards the tent in quick steps. Fortunately, there was no one in the tent where the chest with the remains of this very damned-merchant-who-spoiled-their-lives was kept.  
In the end of the day, since Kevin’s life had already been ruined, he had no choice but to mess it up until the end (and then go to Argentina). Not the most expensive synthetic tent caught on fire very well.  
Because if he understood something about horror films, it is that everything must be burned to the end.  
Kevin shoved the jacket into the backpack and turned around to run out of here as fast as possible. And only a miracle prevented Julian from sneaking up and pushing him into the fire. They grappled and rolled on the ground. At some moments Kevin was pressing Julian against the ground, but was seeing his absolutely human eyes and was losing his grip, and after that already Julian was on top, and his eyes were filled with infernal blackness.  
Till the very last moment Kevin didn’t know what to do with him – with Julian. Till the very end he was hoping that things will come right, and the fire – the archetypal purifying fire – will sort everything out. But at the moment when Julian bashed him against the asphalt with his head, bent down and a stream of blood ran down his forehead from hitting the wall, Kevin remembered distinctly. How Julian leaned right next to his hand and, taking the earphone out of his ear, said: “It's so obvious. The second.”  
The second was “to die a man”.  
Not to live a monster.  
Kevin gathered his last strengths, looked into the black dips of his eyes once again, rolled over, pushing Julian into the fire of a burning tent.  
There was doubled scream and black dust splashed, looking so much like paper ash in the gleams of fire. 

The question "how did I get into this hell?" was heard from Kevin not for the first time. Julian is already used to it. The question was addressed at once to everything: the situation in life, the fact that they might have been threatened with a judicial term, and specifically now - the fact that life nevertheless led Kevin to Beauvais airport.  
At the moment, expensive way to Beauvais was Kevin's main problem, and this was good news. In any case, he did not think about what happened.  
Unlike Julian.  
“Help me?” Julian moved his hands.  
“Sure,” Kevin agreed. After they arrived at the airport, he stopped grumbling and began annoying Julian less.  
They went to the toilet where Kevin pulled a hiking version of the first-aid kit out of the backpack. He took out clean bandages, a plaster and an ointment. Very carefully, wetting with water, he began to remove the yellow from the ointment and pus bandages from his hands. Julian was frowning and bearing it, biting his lips.  
Kevin took a deep breath - he was sick of the smell and vision of burns, but there was no choice - and began to disinfect. In a very short time he had to become a specialist in the treatment of burns.  
“You know,” Kevin started putting fresh bandages on top of the ointment. “I have a question for you. Can I?”  
“Yes,” Julian replied.  
Kevin hesitated, unsuccessfully pulled the bandage and almost got a punch in the ear from Julian’s elbow.  
“Sorry,” he mumbled and coughed. “So, a question. That time, when… hmm… well, let’s say, that time when we did it… It wasn’t you, was it?”  
Kevin looked up and caught Julian’s gaze in the mirror. He didn’t like this gaze at all, and Kevin returned to the first-aid kit. He took an antiseptic and cotton wool, waved Julian so that he turned around, trying not to look him in the eye.  
Because this gaze could mean anything. Absolutely anything. And “yes” and “no”, and something third.  
Julian also had a burn on his cheekbone, cheek and neck, not so bad, but very unpleasant. The plaster slid off the ointment, peeled off and hung in untidy stripes. Carefully peeling off the plaster from the skin, Kevin gasped. It's okay - but, unfortunately, the scar will remain and will not get away by itself.  
“What’s there?” Julian asked hoarsely and tried to turn to look in the mirror.  
“You’ll look at yourself later,” Kevin replied, and took Julian by the shoulder so that he did not twitch.  
When they left the toilet, the attention of the entire airport was riveted on them. Julian, feeling this look, was quivering and throwing evil glances in response. Finally, he could not resist:  
“That’s all, we’re leaving.”  
“Flying away,” Kevin corrected.  
“No. We’re going to the station and leaving from there.”  
“What?” Kevin was outraged. “Did I drag myself here to bind up your hands in this particular toilet?”  
Julian narrowed is eyes:  
“Do you see how they look at me? We will be examined so much that we never fly away from here. Besides, you threw me into the fire - so shut up and go,” and he was the first to head to the exit.  
“I should have met you here when you flew in, right? It's all because of this, well, admit it,” Kevin barely kept up with Julian.  
He nodded.  
Kevin spread his hands. He should’ve known that Julian would remember it more than once. Like this unfortunate burnt down tent.  
And Kevin will answer: who said that it’s better to die a human than to live a monster?  
And Julian – to him: Leonardo DiCaprio. And what are you, a complete dumbass to believe in films? 

That’s how their life will be now.


End file.
